Blue White Illustrated

the weight room in an effort to get an early start on the 2013 season. As for O���Brien, the Lions��� secondyear coach spent part of his winter on the banquet circuit, collecting the Maxwell Club���s Collegiate Coach of the Year award, among others. He was appreciative of the accolades, but at the same time, he was far from satisfied with Penn State���s results last season. ���At the end of the day, we were 8-4. We started the season 0-2,��� he said. ���So we���ve got a lot to improve on. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of positions that need to get better and we have kids who are working hard to do it the way we want to do it. I think they are looking forward to getting out there.��� Players were indeed looking forward to the start of spring drills, largely because they weren���t satisfied with Penn State���s finish last year, either. ���Eightand-four was a good year, but we don���t want to go out and lose four games again,��� senior safety Malcolm Willis said. ���If you���re an athlete, if you���re a competitor, you don���t want to go out and lose. So our goal is to take them one game at a time, and get as many wins as we can.��� The results of Penn State���s off-season work will be on display Saturday in the annual Blue-White Game. Like last year���s game, which featured an offensevs.-defense format for the first time, this one will depart in some ways from tradition. The game will kick off at noon, and the customary pregame autograph session will be expanded to incorporate athletes from other Penn State varsity teams. (See page 8 for details.) Some things aren���t changing. For instance, admission and parking will be free, and if you���re looking for a Penn State football fix, it will be your only chance to see these players in action until Lift for Life on July 12. There are plenty of questions to be answered ��� we���ll address a few of them momentarily ��� and there���s plenty of tailgating to be done. With any luck, it won���t snow. 1 How have the quarterbacks fared this spring? Nobody has seemed more disturbed about the area���s dreary winter weather than Steven Bench, a Georgia native. On March 25, a day on which four more inches of snow fell, he tweeted, ���Seriously State College, this weather isn���t funny anymore.��� Tyler Ferguson isn���t as active on Twitter as his fellow quarterback, but he���s from Bakersfield, Calif., so he presumably hasn���t enjoyed it much, either. But both of these guys have bigger challenges in front of them than having to trudge through piles of snow to get to class. Penn State���s quarterback battle isn���t going to get resolved in the next week or even the next month. Unlike last year, when O���Brien named Matt McGloin his starter on June 1, the Nittany Lions appear determined to keep this year���s competition going into preseason camp. And why not? Christian Hackenberg will be on campus by then ��� he���s set to arrive in June with the rest STEVEN BENCH | 6-2, 205, SO. BY THE NUMBERS Bench played in only two games (Virginia and Purdue) and attempted eight passes in his freshman season with the Nittany Lions, completing two for 12 yards. Before enrolling at Penn State last summer, he threw for nearly 2,000 yards and 20 touchdowns as a senior at Cairo (Ga.) High. QUOTABLE Steven Bench (via Twitter): ���Doubting me will always end badly for you.��� THE SKINNY Bench is a drop-back passer who fits the system that Bill O���Brien has put in place at Penn State. It didn���t take him long to replace dual-threat QB Paul Jones on last season���s depth chart, but after becoming Matt McGloin���s backup ��� and filling in for a couple of possessions at Virginia after McGloin got hurt ��� he promptly disappeared from view, resurfacing only briefly against Purdue. There was some disagreement over whether he had ���plateaued,��� to use a word that was being thrown around last fall, or was suffering from neglect, with the coaching staff having opted to devote its full attention to McGloin. Regardless, he���s had an opportunity make his case this spring and seemed to be getting about the same number of reps as Ferguson at Penn State���s open practice March 27. PHIL���S TAKE Winning the starting position will be a four-part process for Bench. He must get in the film room as McGloin did last year, immerse himself in the playbook, make the most of his repetitions in spring practice and work with the wide receivers on his own this spring and summer to develop timing. John Beale

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